One by One

  When Walker faced her, his mouth had turned down, his lips receding into his face behind the wall of beard. She only saw teeth.

  “I…know…what I want.”

  The words were pulled out, like splinters, each a bit more painful than the next.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, calming him.

  He breathed, in, out, in. Slow. The storm cloud slowly dissipated.

  “Little girls,” he said, “like us…always with the questions.” He went back to the oven and opened it. The smell of roasted meat filled the kitchen as he drew the pan out and set it on top of the stove. Alice tried to remember her mother’s roast, a sweet memory that felt so distant in that moment. It was always her favorite, but it took so long to cook she wasn’t expecting Walker’s anytime soon, not until they all got settled.

  “I used to ask my father questions,” he continued. “He was busy. He was always busy, but he always had time for me.”

  He took the lid off, and steam rolled up into his face. For some reason, he sneered.

  “He was a good man. The best man. I was lucky to have him.”

  Trying to convince himself, the voice whispered. Alice watched him the same way she might watch a rattlesnake that appeared at the foot of her bed. Something was rising up in Walker, something dark and even more dangerous than anything she’d seen so far. She could see it in the tensed muscles of his neck as he dug into the pan with a two-pronged fork.

  “I was lucky, Alice. Do you understand that? How lucky I was?”

  A large chunk of meat, brown and glistening, slipped out of the steaming pot and onto a platter.

  “Unlike this one,” he spat, pointing the fork across the kitchen at Frank, who winced. Alice expected him to use the fork on her father, to dash across the linoleum and dig one of his eyes out with it. Instead, the voice calmed back down, slipping back into the higher register.

  “You don’t know what you’ve missed, Alice. To have a father. To have a real father.”

  Alice was trembling, filled with a mixture of fear, disgust, and rage. She’d let this place get hold of her, let this awful man control her in subtle ways. Hours earlier, she was convinced that her father was a murderer. He wasn’t perfect, but at his heart, he was the sweetest man she’d ever known, a man who teared up during sappy commercials, a man who sat up with her all night when she got food poisoning. Somehow, she’d turned on him, siding with the awful thing standing in their kitchen. The mere thought of it made her tremble, the anger pouring out of her skin, so hot it was painful. She looked up and saw something in Walker’s eyes, something that took her anger to new, untold levels.

  He was smiling. The look in his eyes was nothing less than beaming pride.

  “I have a real father,” she spat.

  Alice didn’t so much speak the words. They escaped. The moment they were out, she could see the impact. Everyone in the room looked at her with wide, unbelieving eyes.

  “What did you say?” Walker asked.

  “She’s barely awake,” Dean replied, trying to cover for her.

  Walker held a hand to his forehead, as if he were in some kind of unthinkable pain. “I’m trying…I’m…trying…”

  Alice held her breath, waiting for another blow to come.

  “I knew…that this would h-happen… This family is…is…broken. I have to f-fix it.”

  He turned back to the kitchen, but he was only gone for a moment. When he returned, he held the platter of meat in one hand, and a knife in the other. He dropped the platter onto the center of the table, the clang eliciting a scream from Alice.

  “I’m trying,” he said, his voice stronger now, all hints of childishness gone, “to fix what’s broken. Do any of you appreciate what I fucking do? What I’ve given up for this family?”

  His voice rose to a scream, and he began to wave the knife around. Once, it swung so close to Dean’s face that Dean screamed and ducked aside.

  “This family has to be fixed, or none of this is going to work. Do you understand that? People die when things don’t work!”

  The fire in his eyes died away, and he closed them. Mary, or the crude copy of her, appeared once again. When he opened his eyes and spoke once more, the softer tone had returned.

  “We can fix this. I know we can.”

  He reached down and began to cut. In her previous terror, Alice hadn’t noticed the steaming hunk of meat. Now, it was all she could see.

  “You see,” Walker said, slicing into it, “a family has to be perfect. None of the pieces can be out of place. It’s like that picture I painted.…”

  The meat was a strange, misshapen thing, something she couldn’t recognize. Even so, it horrified her in ways she couldn’t explain.

  Not right. Not good.

  “I painted it back when everything was just right.”

  A hunk of brown meat slipped off a small bone. Frank began to gag. Dean shook his head. They already knew.

  You know too.

  “This family was so close to being perfect…but there was one problem.”

  The meat had been carved on one side, a series of slices down to the ribs. Walker spun the platter around to get to the other side.

  “We never had a cat.”

  The face was locked in an endless scream, the lips pulled back, revealing the needle teeth.

  Baxter.

  “This family has to be made right.”

  There was nothing else in the world. There was no monster hiding in their house. There was no family in danger. There was no swimming pool filled with human shit. There was only him. A madman who had killed her cat.

  That is my father, a voice whispered, a voice she assumed belonged to a ghost. That’s why I’m dead. Because I wouldn’t stand for another horror to happen.

  Frank was convulsing in disgust, trying to knock over his chair, trying to get away. He had reached his breaking point. Debra might have as well, but in a different way. Her eyes were closed so tightly that she might have been asleep if not for the steady hitching of her chest. And poor Dean stared deep into the corpse of the cat that always bit him, unable to look away like a kid stumbling across his first roadkill. Only Alice was still there, able to see this scene for what it was.

  He killed me, Mary whispered. You can’t let him kill you, girl.

  “Please,” she said quietly, “I need you to stop this, Mary. I need you to stop this.”

  Walker looked up from the work, and the anger swelled up in him, changing him from one person to another. He raised the knife so suddenly that Dean ducked away yet again.

  “This is the way it is, little girl,” he said, pointing.

  Little girl.

  He turned toward Frank and raised the knife, slicing the gag away and opening a gash on his cheek in the process.

  “Jesus, please,” Frank moaned, leaning over on the table for support.

  “I’ll fix this,” Walker roared. “I’ll fix this fucking family if it’s the last thing I do.”

  He picked up a greasy piece of meat and mashed it into Frank’s mouth.

  “Eat it. Eat it, you son of a bitch. You killed your family, do you understand that? You fucking killed them!”

  Little girl.

  “You think you can fix them? I’m the only one who can fix them.”

  That’s what they called you in school, Mary whispered.

  “Eat it. Everyone’s going to eat it together. We’re going to fix this family!”

  You know what they called me in school? Mary asked. They called me bitch.

  “Stop it!” Alice yelled, slapping her hand on the table.

  Frank, sputtering and bleeding, spat out the hunk of meat, silently sobbing. He seemed too tired, too broken to even notice the danger his daughter was in. Debra opened her eyes and strained against her ropes as the tall, gaunt man walked around t
he table, knife outstretched.

  “You,” he said, reaching the length of the table to point at Alice with the knife, which hovered in front of her face. “You were supposed to be the one. The only one. The one who understood me.”

  They called me that because I wouldn’t let them do whatever they wanted. Maybe that’s what you need, girl.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Walker asked. “How can I fix it if you’re the one who’s broken?”

  A good girl won’t get you out of this.

  “I thought we would be friends.”

  Alice stared up at him. Her blood had turned to ice. She didn’t know if she would ever make it out of this alive, but it didn’t matter anymore. If she didn’t say it, if she didn’t get the words inside her out into the world, she was already dead.

  “I would have been friends with her,” Alice whispered. “But she’s dead.”

  “Please,” Dean said. “She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  Alice ignored her brother. “You killed her.”

  The words landed with a finality that shook everyone into silence. Walker looked over at Dean, then Frank, then Debra.

  “I can’t fix this,” he whispered. “How could I fix this? I couldn’t fix the cat…it was wrong. It was just wrong.…”

  He was circling the table towards her, knife twitching in his hands. Debra tried to scream through her gag, while Dean kept pleading.

  “Please, no, she’s just a kid.…”

  If Walker heard the words or saw the desperation, he made no sign. Instead, he walked calmly over to Alice.

  “I can’t fix you,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Because this family already has a daughter.”

  With his free hand, he swept the dead cat away to the floor, and with a swift, sudden move, he grabbed Alice by the neck and swung her up onto the table. She landed flat on her back, with the knife hovering over her face.

  “This family will be right again,” he spat, his voice that of a thoroughly mad man once again.

  You can’t beat him! a voice called from within. It was the soft voice, the scared voice, the voice of the good girl. Then another voice took over. The voice of the bitch.

  Mary’s voice.

  Yes you can, girl, just not like this. Your mind can beat him, so use it!

  “Daddy!” Alice yelled out as Walker forced her head back, pushing it flat against the table, exposing her neck. She could feel Frank rattling the table next to her, fighting to get free, but she ignored it.

  Deeper, the voice said. Your words can cut, so use them!

  “Not again, Daddy,” she said. It was an act, some strange bit of dress-up, mixed with real tears and true fear. Walker held the knife aloft, but the words seemed to weaken him.

  “Please,” she sobbed as he stared down at her, mad. “Not again. Not there…”

  You know what to say. You know that words are weapons.

  It was true. She did know. Mary had told her.

  So stop fucking around and use them!

  The table had grown quiet, none of them daring to breathe as they waited for Walker to make his choice. In that beat of silence, Alice spoke.

  “Not the woods. Not the shed. Please, Daddy, don’t make me go back there.”

  Even then, even after everything, Alice still didn’t know what had actually happened back there in the woods. It was a gamble, her last card to lay down, and if she was wrong, then nothing would save her. She gazed up at the insane face of Mary’s father, and she saw him begin to crack. The knife was shaking in his hands, and his eyes slipped closed, the lids trying to keep the tears at bay. He sniffed once, again, and Alice could see the snot running down his nose.

  “N-n-no…not there…”

  You have him.

  Alice could see it. Walker slowly lowered the knife, and the entire room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. They weren’t out of it, not by a long shot, but Alice knew Mary was right. She did have him.

  “Daddy never hurt me,” he said, his voice pitiful, wounded.

  Alice was scrambling. She had him, but the question was, could she keep him? She leaned up onto her elbows.

  “He was a good daddy,” Alice assured him, and Walker nodded. She glanced down at his hand. The knife was still there, still gleaming and dangerous, as if he were holding a poisonous snake.

  “Yes,” Walker whined.

  Alice didn’t know what to do next. She didn’t have a plan, but she did have something. The beginning of a plan perhaps.

  That’s not good enough, the good girl pleaded.

  Shut the fuck up, honey, Mary replied. A bit of a plan, a bit of luck.

  Alice wasn’t confident, but she knew that if she left Walker alone, he would come back to the same spot eventually. She had to be the one in charge.

  “It’s that place,” she whispered, sitting up on the table and speaking to Walker as if the two were sharing a secret. Walker’s brow furrowed, but he leaned closer to hear.

  “That place in the woods,” she continued. “It’s a bad place. It made Daddy bad.”

  “No,” Walker said, raising the knife, holding it just in front of her nose, driving her back down to the table. “Daddy was good. He was always good—”

  “I know,” she said, cutting him off. “It wasn’t him. It was never him. It was that place. That was the only thing that ever made him…different.”

  Walker’s eyes darted back and forth as he backed a step away. Alice sat all the way up.

  You’re in charge.

  The feel of her feet back on the floor gave her a surge of adrenaline.

  You’re doing it.

  “We have to fix this,” she said, reaching out, daring to place a hand on his shoulder. Walker flinched, but he didn’t chase her away.

  “We can fix it,” she assured him. “We just need to get rid of that place. To…to burn it!”

  It was pure inspiration, something she hadn’t planned. Even so, she could see the beauty in it. There were a million things that could happen between the house and the shed, and while most of them might be awful, at least a few scenarios ended with her saving herself and her family. She looked into Walker’s eyes and added, “When that place is gone, everything will be right. Everything will be fixed again. And the best part is you’ll be the one to do it.”

  Alice froze, locked between the two possibilities, between salvation and damnation. Then, Walker gazed at her, his eyes watery, his face broken. And nodded.

  Chapter Twenty

  Walker watched her dress, layering sweats and a light jacket over the pajamas before slipping on a knit hat. Her heavy coat, her real coat, was still lying in a pile of sewage next to the back bathroom along with her heavy boots. A pair of tennis shoes were all she had, but they would have to work.

  There was a subtle truce between them, a house built on shaky ground that neither of them quite trusted. He held on to the knife, and as she had passed from room to room, she kept looking for a way to slip a weapon into her pocket. A knife, a pair of scissors, even something as innocuous as an ink pen. She never got the chance, and once she was dressed, her plan felt beyond foolish.

  He’ll walk you out there and kill you.

  It wasn’t Mary’s voice. She had gone silent, saving herself for the end perhaps. Alice brushed the voice aside, but there was no denying the weight of the words. Was she walking to her death? It certainly felt that way, especially in her flimsy clothing, a poor defense against the snow.

  Alice walked out of her room, looking like a kid on Christmas morning who wants to take her new sled for a ride without actually getting dressed. Walker stepped aside and pointed the knife at her.

  “I’ll follow you,” he said.

  “Do you have matches?”

  He nodded. “Just go.”

  She f
ollowed the foul smell of shit through the house, back to the pool. It looked like a slug trail. She walked past her family, the three of them still locked in place. Dean’s chair looked slightly askew, as if he’d been trying to work himself free after they left the room.

  “Take me instead,” he said as they passed, but neither she nor Walker looked for more than a second. “Take me, you sick fuck. Leave my sister alone!”

  Alice cut her eyes at him for a few seconds, just long enough to hiss, “Shut up, Dean.”

  To her amazement, he did. They walked out the same way she had been dragged in, past the slug trail of human shit and out into the cold. The pool stretched before her, bigger somehow, an open pair of jaws that wasn’t satisfied since she got away. Even from a distance, Alice wondered if she might somehow slip into it, if she might find herself once again in the black frozen world of ice and human waste. She pressed against the wall of the house as Walker opened the wooden gate.

  “Go,” he said, motioning her through.

  Once she was past the gaping blackness of the pool, she felt the cold for the first time. Her feet were the worst. With the flimsy shoes on, it felt as if she were wearing nothing more than a pair of thick socks. Once she rounded the corner of the fence, the wind hit her face full on, a bitter assault that made her long for the awful scene she just left. She glanced back at Walker who was stumbling through the snow behind her. The weather was a lot, even for him, but he was still in control.

  “Go!” he yelled over the wind. “Keep going!”

  The two of them plodded forward, less adversaries in that long walk than teammates, allies in some long, brutal struggle against nature itself. The snow had stopped falling, but the wind was as violent as ever, and the loose powder blew up, into their faces and nostrils. Once, Alice slipped to her knee, and the cold of the snow bit into her, right through the thin protection of the pajamas and sweats. Walker was there a moment later, lifting her as the melting snow soaked through down the front of her leg and into her shoes. She stood, taking one glance back at the house. It shone like a lighthouse, a beacon in the darkness behind them.

  “Go!”